Social Media Check: How to Manage Your Online Brand

Your online presence will be checked. We repeat — your online presence will be checked. Make sure you're prepared.

Let’s imagine you just landed an interview for a job that you really want. The pay is right, the company has a sterling reputation, and there is plenty of room for career growth. You know better than to wear a t-shirt and jeans to your interview, so you pick out an appropriate, yet stylish, outfit meant to impress. Then, once you’re in the hiring manager’s office, you will speak politely and positively while you impress them with your skill set.

But what about a social media check?

The truth is, prepping for your interview is just a small part of the picture. Some surveys have shown that 93 percent of hiring managers are going to check out potential job candidate’s online presence. As a result of this trend of an internet and social media check, you should be working to create a personal brand through your online presence. If you haven’t started cultivating your presence, here’s a great checklist to help you get started. If you have, you need to make sure your brand is depicting exactly what you want it to because hiring managers will look.

Does that mean they’ll be looking at your LinkedIn page? Almost certainly. But what makes you think they’ll stop there? They will probably do a full social media check too. If that gives you a little panic moment, it probably should. Other social media sites, blogs, and anything else you do online leaves a trail that could lead to negative impressions for potential employers.

Here is a simple checklist of things to look for and clean up before it’s too late.

LinkedIn

Your LinkedIn account isn’t likely to have a lot of embarrassing stuff floating around, but is it in prime shape? Employers checking social media will be sure to start here. Make sure you have a winning LinkedIn profile to give them a fantastic first impression.

Is everything up to date? It seems overly simple, but it’s easy to forget to change your profile after switching jobs or positions, getting a new website, or even moving. Also, make smart use of keywords. Sprinkle some good keywords throughout your profile that will attract the attention of hiring managers you want to talk to.

Facebook

Your Facebook page isn’t meant to be professional, is it? No, but that won’t stop many potential employers doing a social media check from looking at it anyway. Some even go so far as to directly ask for your information and to be allowed to fully view your page (no filters). Be wary of any company that does that.

In the top, right-hand corner of your profile you’ll see a little question-mark symbol. Once you click on that, go to “Privacy Check-Up.” This will allow you to set who you want to be able to see your future posts, what apps you logged into and the ability to delete what you don’t use anymore, and who can see what on your personal profile. Take your time and look over each one carefully.

Next, view your activity log (also found in the privacy settings menu). This shows everything you’ve done on Facebook and whether or not it was public. In short, this is what people see when they see you on Facebook.

What kind of picture does it paint of you?

Pay special attention to pictures that could paint you in a bad light. Illegal drugs, constant drinking, or overtly sexual images are major no-nos. In the privacy settings, you can set it so any pictures you are tagged in have to be reviewed by you before posting on your timeline. Have your friends tagged you in photos and you didn’t even know it? If you see some that you don’t really like, remove the tag or ask them to delete the picture.

Do you have posts where you rant and rave about politics, relationships, or previous employers? They fall into that “seemed like a good idea at the time” category. They weren’t. Look over your posts and use this list of red flags to weed out the things that are most likely to give employers a negative impression of you.

Your personal blog

If you have a professional blog, that’s fantastic. Demonstrating your knowledge in your field and ability to communicate at the same time can do wonders for your job prospects. A personal blog, however, might be little more than an online journal. Maybe it talks about your hobbies, your experiences dating, or something else from your personal life.

Having a personal blog is not a negative if it is done in a moderately professional way. Even though you may think nobody reads your blog (and maybe you haven’t touched it in years), it’s still out there and probably visible.

Revisit your blog and edit it, if necessary. If you don’t use it anymore, it may be worth taking down entirely.

Remember Myspace?

Yikes! Your Myspace account is still out there, and when potential employers check social media, they may find it. Even if your account doesn’t have any damning photos or content, it doesn’t look great when a hiring manager’s search pops up old, antiquated social media sites; it tells them that you’re behind the times. Save those great old photos on your hard drive and just delete your account.

Look for any other sites where you may have signed up and then forgotten about it. Delete those accounts, too.

All the rest

Depending on how you like to interact with the virtual world online, you may have a dozen or more social media accounts. Here's how to tackle all your networks and perform your own social media check:

Reddit: Log in and go to “Preferences,” and scroll down to the bottom. You’ll find privacy settings there. Uncheck "make my votes public" and "allow my data to be used for research purposes." Check the bottom two boxes labeled "don't allow search engines to index my user profile," and "load core JS libraries from Reddit servers." This one keeps Google from getting your IP address and other info about you.

YouTube: If you’ve uploaded videos in the past, the default setting is “Public.” If you don’t want to delete old videos, learn how to change your settings.

Twitter: Go to “Settings” and then “Security and Privacy” and click “Protect my Tweets.” Your tweets will only go to followers now and anyone wishing to follow you must get permission.

Type your name into the search box. You may find that you’ve been mentioned on Twitter without your knowing it. Look for any disparaging remarks and take care of them. You may have to contact the original tweeter.

Pinterest: Change your “Search Privacy” to “Yes” in the settings.

Google+: If you have a Gmail account, you have a Google+ account. Check it for accuracy, update it, or delete it.

Instagram: Go to “Edit your profile” and choose “Posts are Private.”

Tumblr: You can set your Tumblr blog to not be posted on the web and not show up in search engine results. Unless it is a professional blog, you may want to do that.

Flickr: Log in and click on “you” in the menu. Under “Privacy Settings” there is a link to your default preferences. Click on this link and set your defaults how you like.

It’s worth the effort to look at each of your accounts and clean up the ones that you still like and simply delete the accounts that you don’t use at all anymore.

Job boards

Have you posted your resume to your profile on a number of job boards? Once you’ve landed a job, it’s easy to forget to update or delete those profiles. Old, outdated resumes and profiles can send the wrong message. Find them and either update or delete them. If you decide to update them, be sure to add in some of those great keywords to draw attention.

Google yourself

Once you’ve done your social media check and completed a pretty thorough cleaning up of your social media sites, type your name into Google and see what comes up. What shows up in this search is, in essence, representative of your online brand. Be ready for anything. It could be old comments you’ve left on various news, sports, or pop culture sites. You may even discover that someone else has quoted you or referenced you without your knowledge.

Once you’ve found and done what you can to clean all of that up, click on the “images” tab. Chances are there will be some images of you and then a lot that has nothing to do with you. There’s not much you can do about them, but look at the ones that really are you. Do they present you in a favorable or professional way? If not, find out where they are coming from and clean them up.

If you want to remove things from Google’s search findings, there are ways to do that by contacting Google itself.

Add positive material

Even once you’ve cleaned up all of your online presence, it’s impossible to know everything that is out there. One more thing you can do that has a dual benefit is to actively start posting on all of your social media sites regularly. The key here is to keep your posts positive, fun, and free of any red flags.

Obviously, these posts will be some of the most recent hits that a hiring manager sees, so they will present you in the light that you want. The added benefit is that by adding a lot of new material, you’re pushing the old material down the list. It doesn’t mean that it’s not still out there, but you can reduce the chances that someone will see it by having a new wave of positive material take the top spots.

You may not want to worry about your image on Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter, but if you’re putting yourself out there and looking for a new career, it’s a necessary part of today’s world. When all is said and done, it’s still possible to show your personality and have a great time on social media without crossing those lines. Finding the balance between fun and professional isn’t as hard as you may think. With these simple tips, you can clean up your web trail and start building a better virtual you.